The name of my disease was Contagion. The first time around I chose Russia. I figured it was a large enough country and I was curious to see what happened. In the first game, I didn’t really know how to play as I was getting acquainted with the game and how it worked. After I figured out what everything did, I killed everything on earth in about a little over a year. The first thing I chose was insects and then I played around with a few other vectors to see how fast everything would go and try to make my bacteria spread faster. Once I got to birds and airborne forms of transmission it went a little faster.

The second country I chose was India, and while disease spread a lot faster  this time, I was not able to kill off the world. I chose a more difficult level because I thought I  already knew what to do.  Initially I diversified my ways of transmission, and then I went for the abilities of the DNA, changing its strength like resistance to antibiotics, and the ability to thrive in certain temperatures, however I wasn’t able to get Greenland! I honestly wasn’t paying attention to how long it took to infect the first 100 but it happened very quickly. Once you added water transmission and means of transmission through sweat, or sneezing, and coughing in a very populated area, it went very fast.

This game definitely helped me to understand pandemic transmission a lot better. There was definitely a difference between the different types of transmissions and how quickly they spread in relation to the population. It was also interesting to see how the bacteria mutated on its own. Another thing that slowed down transmission was when they stopped transportation.  This game made me really pay attention to the things we do on a daily basis, and it even made me think about the Ebola virus and what was happening when it hit the United States. Unfortunately this game is a little addicting but it was fun and educational at the same time.

The name that I have my disease was TRUMP. I have played the game many times over the last week and have opened up all the other diseases, other than just a bacteria. The most success I had with the game was starting in either England or India. with India and other countries that don’t have the resources of the 1st world nations the bacteria spread a lot more easier. When I started out in England I found that the disease didn’t spread as fast as in the case with India, but it spread to other nations faster, because of all the transportation that does to England. Usually after the first few days I was able to spread the epidemic to a few hundred people. By using the DNA points to make it disease easy to spread through animals, and air, and using the lung symptoms proved the best way , and easiest to get as many people contaminated. after the first month or two i was able to have a few million people contaminated. I usually wait to have at least 2/3 billion people infected worldwide before I started making the disease deadly. Also the speed that the cure was being manufactured and studied made me make the needed changed to the symptoms that it becomes harder to cure, and kills more people, hopefully destroy the country that is trying to find the cure. once i made the disease more deadly it usually was about 2/3 weeks to have a million deaths. I found that in making the disease to deadly killed off the infected people at such a rate that the disease killed it self of. I made TRUMP very easily to be contaminated, first by making it easier to be spread through the air, but also made sure that TRUMP had the properties that it could travel through water, since air travel is the first thing to close when the disease starts spreading and becoming a pandemic. I always waited for at least half the population to be infected before making the symptoms to have  fatal effects on the infected. I found it to me fungus the hardest option to kill off the world. I have killed the population of earth about 15 times since I started playing the game on Tuesday. The fasted result I got in destroying humanity was 552 days, the longest game that I won, humanity lasted 1700 days before everyone was killed off. Certain plague types are easier to infect and spread then other. The fasted and most devastating plague that I was able to destroy humanity with was the two man made ones, Nano-Virus and Bio-Weapon, I don’t remember how many days it took me to destroy humanity but it was faster then 552, but that was best one I could remembered. This game was very helpful in understanding how a plague can wipe out humanity, specially one that we humans made.  

Y2K is the name of the disease. I began my disease in Turkey for my first game. It took about forty days to affect the first one hundred people and one hundred days to affect the first 1, 000, 000 people. The first death occurred on 350th day. It took about 350 days for the first death to occur because of the advance medical technology we have today. I think we are in the era where medical technologies are adequate, sufficient and ready to cure or relieve disease and illness. With the advanced medical technologies, we are better and prompt at managing, diagnosing and treating new disease sand  illnesses. This plague started in Turkey and spread out worldwide did not destroy the human race.  It was eradicated in 742nd days by the clinical research finding with 100% cure. My second game began in USA. It took about three months to affect the first hundred people and six months to affect the first 1,000,000 people. The first death occurred at one year after the disease started. The plague destroyed the human race in 636 days. It took longer to affect more people in the wealthier country, the USA, than in Turkey. However, the disease started in USA wiped out the human race not the disease started  in Turkey. I was little surprised with the result. I thought  the wealthier country would have better health system and clinical research team to manage and contain the disease. The game definitely helped me better understand the pandemic transmission. I think the technologies of aircraft, wars and trades play a big part in spreading the disease. I could see the affected people spread the disease through traveling via boats, ships and airplanes. The under-developing countries were affected and got destroyed quicker than the wealthier countries. The climate also contributes to the gene mutation which makes it harder to kill the disease.    

First game

Start: 10/17/15

Bacteria: Alien V

Origin: China

100 people infected: 12/03/15

1,000,000 people infected: 1/26/2016

First death: 3/21/16 China

Destroyed human race? Yes (11/13/16)

conquered Greenland? Yes

                 Since China has a general climate, so I first made the bacteria able to travel  and spread in air to increase the infectivity in arid environment and plane transmission. Then I created the bacterial shell to protect against all climate, because it was spreading to other countries that had different climates. I wanted to increase the ability of spreading first, then the severity. I didn’t want people to die too soon because the disease would become more noticeable. The whole Asia soon started getting infected. When the diseases reached Japan, I increase the drug resistance since Japan was a wealthy country and had a high quality of health care. Then I continuously made the bacteria transmitted via rodent, insect, and water. Also, I found that the more countries and people infected or died, the more DNA points I could get. I used a lot of DNA points to made the symptoms more lethal in order to speed up destroying more countries. When the cure reached  25%, I used a lot of DNA points to reduce and hinder the speed of the cure research. Morocco was the last country to be infected, and  the spread was kind of slowed down there instead of Greenland. Greenland was easily destroyed.

Second game

Start:10/17/15

Bacteria: Teddy

Origin: Central Africa

100 people infected: 12/2/15

1,000,000 people infected: 2/6/16

First death: 8/22/16 in Egypt

Destroyed human race? Yes 3/8/2017

Conquered Greenland? Yes

             Central Africa had a hot climate, so I first made the bacteria Africa spread via insect; then, I increased the heat resistance. In the beginning, the bacteria was spreading kind of slow, Even I increased the infectivity of the bacteria, it was still spreading mostly in Africa. Therefore, I wasn’t getting a lot of DNA points compared to China, so I couldn’t really increase the lethality. The first death was almost after a year. This time I spent the DNA points mostly on the symptoms and infectivity. The percentage of cure was up to 50%. After the disease reached to other countries, the spreading was boosted. Greenland was the last country to be infected this time, but I still destroyed it.

             The bacteria spread faster in China than Africa. I think it is because China is a big country that has a lot of businesses and connections  with other countries; therefore, it’s very easy and fast to spread the bacteria via planes and ships. In contrast, Africa is a relatively poor country, so it has less international business with other countries, less people traveling around in this country. Therefore, it took longer and harder for the disease to spread. I saw a lot of airplanes and ships commuting between countries, I assumed that’s how the diseases spread all around the world so quickly. After playing this game, I noticed that pandemic in wealthy countries actually spread faster than poor countries. This game also let me understand that once a pandemic occurs, the first thing people do is to close down the airports and seaports, because that how the bacteria travel from one country to the other. Also, since I was the one who controlled the pandemic, I learned more about how the bacteria can be mutated to survive in different climates, and how the symptoms can be developed and related. I think it will be really scary if it really happens in real life.

At my first go with Plague I decided to name my bacterial disease ‘Toxy Roxy’ and I started her in Egypt. The start date was October 17^th 2015 and by December 12^th it had infected 100 people, just over a year later on November 4^th it infected 4 million people, the 1 million mark escaped me. The first death by Toxy Roxy was on August 5^th 2016 so I think the one million mark would have been between August and November. The disease spread so fast it managed to wipe out the human race in just 588 days, something I am rather proud of. The second game I played I created ‘Brocco’ on October 20^th 2015 and put him in China. I immediately noticed that Brocco spread faster globally whereas Toxy Roxy spread faster continentally. Since China is a richer country than Egypt it was understandable that this would happen seeing as thought they have more international travel and trade. The first 100 people were infected by December 24^th 2015, a similar rate to Toxy Roxy, just a tad bit slower. Brocco had infected 1 million people by March 25^th 2016 and the first death by Brocco occurred on February 17^th, 2017. In a mere 681 days from his creation Brocco wiped out the human population. With Brocco I knew that the first death took longer because I was focused on evolving transmissions rather than symptoms. I did this because after creating Toxy Roxy I played a few more times and had a game where I infected 75% of the world but my symptoms were so deadly that everyone died and the disease eradicated itself. So from that game on I learned that a good tactic to play is to spend DNA points on transmissions rather than symptoms because the symptoms will evolve on their own. This technique works it just seems to go by slower since the first death takes a while so I just put it on fast forward and watch the world come to its demise.

Playing this game was really fun and interesting. Initially was a little hard to understand the process but after a few tries I got the hang of it. I named my bacteria XWORLD, hoping that I would be able to eliminate the human race. On the first game I started in China since the large population would contribute to the extent of the spread. I try to keep an eye on the news and see how I could use them to help spread the disease. I started the game on October 17, 2015. About 150 people were infected on day 62. in three months there over 120.000 people infected. The first death took place about one year later in China. During the game one i tried to use all the points to my favor in order to potentiate the effects  of the bacteria. It was so obvious how quickly the disease was spreading especially in highly populated areas. I used my DNA points for the symptoms, but that was not enough. Pretty soon the cure was developed and I was not able to eradicate the human race, unfortunately.

On my second try I wanted to start in Canada, since the climate is a little cooler and the population is lower than China. Starting date of the game was October 17, 2015.  About 100 people were infected on day 45 and by five months period over 100.000 were infected. During my second try I keep some of the symptoms hidden, trying to see if that changes the course of the disease. It seemed that if the symptoms were not noticeable the disease spread quicker. regardless of many adjustments that I made, the bacteria was not deadly yet to eradicate the world. Because I started in a cooler environment and less populated than the first one, this allowed for the bacteria to be slower in spreading and the cure was found faster this time around. So, unfortunately I ended up killing less people this time around not able to eliminate human kind.

What is so interesting about this game is that it gives us a visual idea on how the disease spreads, and how easy it nowadays considering air travel. If a bacteria of virus were to be deadly in nature, the humanity can truly suffer and elimination can be a potential outcome if the cure is not developed on time.  Stopping the transmission can break the cycle and allow enough time for cure to be developed.

I will give this game few more attempts until I eliminate humanity…. Interesting and fun game to play.

On the first try, I named my bacteria EMNY and started it off in China. The disease spread almost instantly. I kept my eye on the world news, such as a kissing festival. When that festival occurred, I would upgrade my bacteria that can spread through blood contact. I spread the bacteria mostly from upgrading the Water Transmission and Air Transmission. When the news said the ships were going to increase its resistance to bacteria, I would upgrade the Water Transmission further. My first death took a while because I did not upgrade its symptoms very much until the bacteria was spread to a few billion people. However, my first bacteria failed because I upgraded the symptoms too soon and I did not manage to infect every single person. Therefore, the bacteria died with the last person infected, and the few that were not infected with the bacteria lived.

On my second try, I named my bacteria AYNY and started it off in India. I repeated the steps from the first game except I did not upgrade any of the symptoms until I got a notification that every single living being was infected with my bacteria. When that happened, I upgraded all my symptoms to high lethality and I easily wiped out humanity in just mere minutes.

In both games, none of the countries found a cure past 30%. On the second try, the bacteria spread a lot quicker because I focused on upgrading the Transmission chart over anything else in the beginning. The game helped me understand how simply easily and quickly a deadly bacterium can spread due to so many factors, such as air, water, animal, and blood transmission.